Abdulaziz bin Abdu Rahman Al Saud (Arabic: عَبْدُ الْعَزِيزِ بْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ بْنِ فَيْصَلٍ آلِ سُعُود; 15 January 1876 – 9 November 1953), known in the Western world as Ibn Saud (Arabic: ابن سعود; Ibn Suʿūd), and known with his kunya Abu Turki (Arabic: أَبُو تُرْكِي), was a Najdi war leader, statesman, and religious leader who became the founder and first King of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death in 1953. He had ruled parts of the kingdom since 1902, having previously been Emir, Sultan, King of Nejd, and King of Hejaz.
Ibn Saud was the son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, Emir of Nejd, and Sara bint Ahmed Al Sudairi. The family were exiled from their residence in the city of Riyadh in 1890. Ibn Saud reconquered Riyadh in 1902, starting three decades of conquests that made him the ruler of nearly all of central and north Arabia. He consolidated his control over Najd in 1921, then conquered the Hejaz in 1925. He extended his dominions into what later became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Ibn Saud's victory and his support for Islamic revivalists would greatly bolster pan-Islamism across the Islamic world. Concording with Wahhabi beliefs, he ordered the demolition of several shrines, the Al-Baqi Cemetery and the Jannat al-Mu'alla. As King, he presided over the discovery of petroleum in Saudi Arabia in 1938 and the beginning of large-scale oil production after World War II. He fathered many children, including 45 sons, and all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia as of 2026.
The Al Saud family had been a power in central Arabia for the previous 130 years. Under the influence and inspiration of Wahhabism, the Saudis had previously attempted to control much of the Arabian Peninsula in the form of the Emirate of Diriyah, the first Saudi state, until its destruction by an Ottoman army in the Ottoman–Wahhabi war in the early nineteenth century.
Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, also known as Ibn Saud, was born on 15 January 1876 in Riyadh. He was the fourth child and third son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, one of the last rulers of the Emirate of Nejd, the second Saudi state, a tribal sheikhdom centered on Riyadh. Ibn Saud's mother was Sara bint Ahmed Al Sudairi of the Sudairi family. She died in 1910. His full-siblings were Faisal, Noura, Bazza, Haya and Saad. He also had a number of half-siblings from his father's other marriages, including Muhammad, Abdullah, Ahmed, and Musaid, who all had roles in the Saudi government. Ibn Saud was taught Quran by Abdullah Al Kharji in Riyadh.
In 1891, the House of Saud's long-term regional rivals led by Muhammad bin Abdullah Al Rashid conquered Riyadh. Ibn Saud was 15 at the time. He and his family initially took refuge with the Al Murrah, a Bedouin tribe in the southern desert of Arabia. Later, the Al Sauds moved to Qatar and stayed there for two months. Their next stop was Bahrain where they stayed briefly. The Ottoman State allowed them to settle in Kuwait where they settled and lived for nearly a decade. Ibn Saud developed a rapport with the Kuwaiti ruler Mubarak Al Sabah and frequently visited his majlis. His father, Abdul Rahman, did not endorse these visits, perceiving Mubarak's lifestyle as immoral and unorthodox.
On 14 November 1901 Ibn Saud and some relatives, including his half-brother Muhammad and several cousins (amongst them Abdullah bin Jiluwi), set out on a raiding expedition into the Nejd, targeting mainly tribes associated with the Rashidis. On 12 December they reached Al Ahsa and then proceeded south towards the Empty Quarter with the support from various tribes. Upon this Abdulaziz Al Rashid sent messages to Qatari ruler Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani and to the Ottoman governor of Baghdad asking their help to stop Ibn Saud's raids on the tribes loyal to Al Rashid. These events led to a decrease in the number of Ibn Saud's raiders, and his father also asked him to cancel his plans to capture Riyadh. However, Ibn Saud did not cancel the raid and managed to reach Riyadh. On the night of 15 January 1902, he led 40 men over the city walls on tilted palm trees and took the city. The Rashidi governor of the city, Ajlan, was killed by Abdullah bin Jiluwi in front of his own fortress. The Saudi recapture of the city marked the beginning of the third Saudi State.
Following Ibn Saud's victory the Kuwaiti ruler Mubarak Al Sabah sent him an additional seventy warriors commanded by Ibn Saud's younger brother Saad. Upon settling in Riyadh, Ibn Saud took up residence in the palace of his grandfather, Faisal bin Turki.
Following the capture of Riyadh, many former supporters of the House of Saud rallied to Ibn Saud's call to arms. He was a charismatic leader and kept his men supplied with arms. Over the next two years, he and his forces recaptured almost half of the Nejd from the Rashidis.
In 1904, Abdulaziz bin Mutaib Al Rashid appealed to the Ottoman Empire for military protection and assistance. The Ottomans responded by sending troops into Arabia. On 15 June 1904, Ibn Saud's forces suffered a major defeat at the hands of the combined Ottoman and Rashidi forces. His forces regrouped and began to wage a guerrilla war against the Ottomans. Over the next two years, he was able to disrupt their supply routes, forcing them to retreat. Their efforts were rewarded in February 1905, when the Ottomans reversed their alliances and named Ibn Saud as qaimmaqam of southern Nejd, a title he held until the 1913 Anglo-Ottoman agreement. Ibn Saud's victory in Rawdat Muhanna, in which Abdulaziz Al Rashid died, ended the Ottoman presence in Nejd and Qassim by the end of October 1906. This victory also weakened Ibn Saud's alliance with the Kuwaiti ruler Mubarak Al Sabah, who began to fear Saudi preeminence in the region.
Ibn Saud completed his conquest of the Nejd and the eastern coast of Arabia in 1912. He then founded the Ikhwan, a military-religious brotherhood, which was to assist in his later conquests, with the approval of local Salafi ulema. In the same year, he instituted an agrarian policy to settle the nomadic pastoralist bedouins into colonies and to replace their tribal organizations with allegiance to the Ikhwan.
Ibn Saud offered his alliance to the British but was rebuffed, and in May 1914 he made a secret agreement with the Ottomans which would have made Ibn Saud the wali (governor) of Najd. With the outbreak of World War I, this agreement did not materialize, and the British government resumed diplomatic relations with him. The British agent, Captain William Shakespear, was well received by the Bedouin. Britain sought similar diplomatic with other Arabian powers seeking to unify and stabilize the region. The Treaty of Darin in December 1915 made the lands of the House of Saud a British protectorate and attempted to define the boundaries of the developing Saudi state. In exchange, Ibn Saud pledged to again make war against Ibn Rashid, who was an ally of the Ottomans.
During this period, Ibn Saud also sought to strengthen his position through regional alliances. Sheikh Khaz'al Emir of Arabistan advised the Ottoman authorities that Ibn Saud was more valuable to them than Al-Ahsa and Qatif, urging them to support him as a strategic asset. As part of his diplomatic engagements, Ibn Saud traveled to Mohammerah as a guest of Sheikh Khaz'al. The two leaders arrived in Basra on the evening of November 26. The next morning, the British senior political officer, accompanied by two high-ranking British military representatives of the stationed army commander in Basra, boarded Sheikh Khaz’al's ship and presented Ibn Saud with the Sword of Honor along with a welcome letter from the army commander. He spent the day inspecting the British military base camps, their organization, and the latest military equipment, including warplanes, which he showed great interest in.
The British Foreign Office had previously begun to support Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and Emir of the Hejaz, by sending T. E. Lawrence to him in 1915. The Saudi Ikhwan began to conflict with Hussein in 1917, just as his sons Abdullah and Faisal entered Damascus. The Treaty of Darin remained in effect until superseded by the Jeddah conference of 1927 and the Dammam conference of 1952, during both of which Ibn Saud extended his boundaries past the Anglo-Ottoman Blue Line. After Darin, he stockpiled the weapons and supplies which the British provided him, including a 'tribute' of £5,000 per month. After World War I Ibn Saud received further support from the British, including a glut of surplus munitions. He launched his campaign against the Al Rashidi in 1920; by 1922 they had been all but destroyed.